Barber Weekend Through My Lens

By Susan Scruggs

I like to take pictures of things that nobody really notices–the behind the scenes parts. If you have never been to a race, here are some things might see at the track. If you go to the track all the time, you can just nod your head and chuckle.

The Firestone Baby—he is one creepy little doll in shades.

A lot of blank screens where cars used to be, as the speed of an Indy car is in direct proportion to the part of the frame that is empty when you hit the shutter of the camera.

If you get to the hill late at Barber, you may have to look for a bit of real estate to get an unobstructed view of the track.

Which frequently does not last long.

If you are really lucky, you will end up sitting next to a bunch of bored kids, who have made use of an ill-gotten cardboard box. Of course there is one kid who gets left out and goes for the big roll.

The bugs are pretty big at that track. I have not figured out why there are so many bug sculptures, but this mosquito is pretty well placed.

There are plenty of racing celebrities there.

(Someone kept jumping into the pictures)

Michael Andretti and Chip Ganassi decide to go for a race behind the pits pre-race.

You wondered how they keep those trucks clean.

And speaking of clean…The Captain runs a clean ship as evidenced by this sign.

You find your sponsors where you can get them.

You put out fires with whatever you can get your hands on (I wonder if the barrel painter noticed anything odd about his lettering). If this barrel has another purpose than throwing on fires, can someone let me know?

Then of course, there’s the winner’s circle.

Will Power caught pre-launch.

The champagne showers. This shot was taken only seconds before one of Power’s crew members used me as a shield as the champagne was aimed in our direction. Did using this poor old lady as a shield work—nope, but there’s something cool about being sprayed with post-race champagne.

The hat dance begins. I counted seven hats—seven photo ops, and seven chances for all of the members of the crew to have their eyes open at the same time.

Will Power looks like he may have put on one too many hats is this photo. But for some reason, I think it is something you might not ever get tired of.

And what photo montage of Barber Motor Speedway would be complete without a pic of the Lady in the Lake?

I figured out why she has an odd look on her face. The lake was swarming with fish.

What race photo scrapbook would be complete without a picture of my son Eric and his friend Charlie posing in front of their favorite hangout? Can you tell which driver Eric likes? We finally got that Tony Kanaan hat, but it looks just like the KV hat he got at Christmas…go figure. This is the new slimmed down version of Eric— he’s been away from his mama’s cooking.

One more shot. My favorite shot of the trip. As we were leaving the rain-out on Friday. Somehow we knew we would have good weather for Sunday.

Y’all come back now, you hear?

Advertisements

Like this:

LikeLoading...

Related

This entry was posted on April 6, 2012 at 4:05 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

8 Responses to “Barber Weekend Through My Lens”

Great shots Susan, thanks for posting and Congrats on your engagement to that grouchy blogger guy….
The water only on the barrel is to remind anyone thinking of dumping, engine, gear oil or race fuel brake fluid etc. In that barrel.